"The GEEF "arguments" have nothing to do with whether a piece is new or old"

With respect that wasn't my point. A very few posters suggest, nay demand, that 'folk' should be the registered trademark of a homely kind of quasi-historical music or story telling and that it is necessarily more authentic and therefore somehow purer than other forms.

I'm saying that doesn't stand up as an argument. It might be galling that 'RnB' used to imply rhythm and blues before the 1990s, itself a compound of earlier forms. Times change, things move on. Music will stand up for itself or it won't, survive or whither. Purists saying 'it's authentic' didn't stop folk almost dying out first time around and not just against a trans-atlantic hegemony. Nostalgia is a form of romanticism, something I'm all for as it happens, but it makes a lousy platform for deductive logic.

If people want to have a singaround at their local club behind closed doors in front of consenting adults it's nobody's business but their's. If they mark it for public consumption the public will have their say. As Nigel suggests, the disapproval surrounding acts like Rusby or the Winterset can be had for any musical genre, proprietorial snorts in the face of upstarts and ingenues. I've always thought paying dues were a lousy substitute for inspiration, fun and a dose of talent.